Bucklin Point Wastewater Treatment plant

The Narragansett Bay Commission’s third and final phase of a multi-year water quality project will cost about $815 million, if state and federal regulators approve the plan. This final phase could bring the project's total cost to about $1.5 billion.

The project, known as the combined sewer overflow (CSO) project, involves installing a large tunnel that would run through Pawtucket, Central Falls and the northern part of East Providence. The tunnel would stop untreated sewage and stormwater from overflowing into Narragansett Bay during heavy rainstorms.

Shell fishermen are banned from fishing in the Upper Narragansett Bay. The Department of Environmental Management has found high levels of bacteria in the water.

DEM’s Chief of Surface Water Protection, Angelo Liberti, says it’s due to a portion of the Bucklin Point Wastewater Treatment plant in East Providence being taken offline. "And with the last rain event, they had some trouble balancing their treatment flow through their system which resulted in the release of partially treated wastewater.”